Rash Behavior Even in Portland's postseason opener, forward Rasheed Wallace, who's as tempestuous as he is talented, couldn't stop himself from drawing yet another technical foul

Before the Portland Trail Blazers' playoff opener on Sunday, progolfer Peter Jacobsen decided to take advantage of a Make YourSign booth in the bowels of the Rose Garden. A die-hard Blazersfan, Jacobsen grabbed a piece of construction paper and scrawledthree words in black ink: ZIP THE LIP. Whenever Portland powerforward Rasheed Wallace strode by Jacobsen's courtside seat, thegolfer stood and pointed to his placard. "I love the way Rasheedplays," said Jacobsen, a resident of Lake Oswego, Ore., "but he'dbe so much better if he just had some self-control."

Indeed, it doesn't take much to summon the rash in Rasheed. Adubious call. A missed call. At times, even a perfectly accuratecall, and he erupts. First, his mouth forms an incredulous O.Then he throws a pointed scowl at the offending ref. He stompson the floor and voices his disapprobation. Finally, the f-bombsstart bursting in air, and he has to be restrained. In theregular season Wallace amassed 38 technical fouls--eclipsing theNBA single-season record of 32 shared by Charles Barkley andDennis Rodman--and was ejected from six games. "That's just mycompetitive fire coming out," says Wallace, who didn't go morethan four games during the regular season without getting T'dup. "I play with intensity, and when I see something wrong, I'mgoing to get mad."

It didn't take him long to get mad in Sunday's Game 1 againstthe Minnesota Timberwolves. With 4:24 left in the first quarter,Wallace was called for a garden variety loose-ball foul on guardMalik Sealy. Jacobsen's directive be damned, Wallace turned toref Mike Mathis and bade him something other than a HappyEaster. Tweet! Wallace kept his cool for the rest of the game,scoring 15 points to help lead Portland to a hard-fought 91-88victory.

Wallace's hair-trigger temper is hardly news to opponents. "We'regoing to do what we can this series to agitate him and take himout of his game," says Timberwolves guard Anthony Peeler. "It'spretty obvious little things can get him real mad."

Yet Wallace's spasms of unadulterated rage abate as quickly asthey flare up. After he blows a head gasket at a home game, heinvariably can be found in the tunnels of the Rose Garden jokingwith friends, playing patty-cake with his kids or razzingteammate Bonzi Wells about his malodorous feet. "People sayRasheed has an attitude problem, but that's not the case," saysWells. "It's funny because most of the time he's the coolest,most laid-back dude."

Wallace's metamorphosis from cool dude to hothead is just one ofhis many incongruities. With apologies to Winston Churchill,Wallace is a riddle wrapped in a mystery, wrapped in a headband."No question Rasheed is a different cat," says Blazers coach MikeDunleavy, the man in charge of getting Portland to the Finals forthe first time since 1992. "He has a lot of dynamics going on, sohe can be hard to figure out."

Ask Wallace to indulge in self-analysis, and after he proffershis "competitive fire" explanation, he embarks on ahard-to-follow Sheed Screed. Like Hillary Clinton discussing herpolitical enemies, Wallace believes he and the Blazers are thetargets of a vast conspiracy. "More than half the time the refsjust go on hearsay," he says. "I come at them with logic, and Iguess that's what burns them up. I think it's bull----. Sooner orlater they're going to have to start giving us calls." Why havethe officials chosen to make Portland the victim of this masterplan? "We don't have a lot of poster boys on this team," explainsWallace.

The book on Wallace reads a lot like the book on the Blazers.Both player and team are versatile, athletic and bottomlesslytalented; both are so maddeningly combustible you're never surewhat you're getting. Is Portland the championship-caliber teamthat was battling the Los Angeles Lakers for the league's bestrecord at the All-Star break? Or is it the rudderless collectionthat went 14-11 after Feb. 29 and lost back-to-back games inApril to the lowly Vancouver Grizzlies and Houston Rockets?Likewise, is Wallace the go-to guy who scored a season-high 34points against the Dallas Mavericks on March 30? Or is he thehellion who, two games later, was tossed after 11 minutes forprotesting an innocuous noncall?

Tough as it is to get a handle on Wallace, it's easy to marvel athis skills. A first-time All-Star who had the best season of hisfive-year career--technicals notwithstanding--Wallace averaged acareer-best 16.4 points and led the team in blocked shots (1.32)and rebounds (7.0). Too quick and agile for most centers and toobig for most forwards, he scores on a variety of unblockableturnarounds, mid-range jumpers and some of the most electrifyingdunks this side of Vince Carter. Defensively, he can play allthree frontcourt positions with equal proficiency. "If I were aG.M., he would be my first choice of anybody," says SacramentoKings center Vlade Divac. "He is a great player and an emotionalguy. He just can't hold his feelings inside."

Wallace may be on the short list of stars on the rise--he playedthe Timberwolves' top gun, Kevin Garnett, to a draw in Game 1--buthe has little use for personal recognition. "It's all about myteam winning games," he says. Unlike so many other stars who makethat claim, Wallace backs up his words. Hailed by his teammatesas the consummate colleague, Wallace is refreshingly unselfish.He may make more than half his shots, but his first instinctafter catching a pass is to scour the floor for cutters. On adeep team, with shots and minutes in huge demand, Wallace hasnever groused about his allotment of either. He even surrenderedhis starting spot to Brian Grant last season without a whimper."I've never heard him ask for anything in a personal way," saysDunleavy. "Rasheed just has an overriding desire to win."

It was no different at North Carolina, where Wallace played fortwo years--and drew seven technical fouls--before turning pro in1995. Dean Smith admits to second-guessing himself for not makingWallace, who left Chapel Hill as the ACC's alltime leader infield goal percentage, a bigger part of a Tar Heels' offense thatfeatured Jerry Stackhouse and Eric Montross. Though Wallace was ahotshot recruit, touted as the best Philadelphia product sinceWilt Chamberlain, he never complained about his role. "Rasheedwas a joy to coach, and I was impressed by his knowledge of thegame," gushes Smith. "If anything, he could be too unselfish."

On the surface Wallace's combination of size, strength,athleticism and 'tude makes him the prototype hoops stud forGeneration Next. Yet his game has a retro flavor. Shod in NikeAir Forces--the footwear equivalent of a Commodore 64computer--Wallace plays a type of basketball that would pleaseany purist. His fundamentals are superb. He uses the backboardwith skill, and when he doesn't rabidly object to being whistledfor a foul, he has the endearingly dated habit of raising hishand in sheepish acknowledgement.

Those two incongruous parts of his nature are apparent off thecourt as well. Wallace shows plenty of symptoms of a chroniccase of arrested development. He loves cartoons, he collectsStar Wars figurines, and he's a guest deejay on a weekly radioshow that resembles a giddy, three-hour version of a"Whazzzzzup" commercial. "Rasheed's a 6'11" kid," says MosesGooch, Wallace's best friend. "When he gets upset, it's like achild who can't have candy."

But as the birthmark of gray hair on the back of his head wouldsuggest, Wallace is also, in some ways, mature beyond his years.Though he doesn't turn 26 until September, Wallace is already asuburb-dwelling family man who forgoes nights on the town tospend time with his wife, Fatima, and their three sons: Malik,12, Ishmiel, 4, and Nazir, 2. "If you want to see the realRasheed, watch him around his family," says Portland centerJermaine O'Neal. "It means everything to him."

Never was that more apparent than three years ago, whenIshmiel's mother, Chiquita Bryant, went into hiding withIshmiel. Though a judge had granted Wallace custody of Ishmielin June 1997, Bryant didn't turn him over. After Rasheed'sattorney and a private investigator couldn't track down Bryant,Wallace used his celebrity status to locate his son. On Dec. 13,1997, he taped an interview with TNT, describing his plight andthe difficulty of playing basketball while Ishmiel was missing.Barely a week later a viewer in Kings Mountain, N.C., whorecognized Bryant, called police with an anonymous tip. At 12:02on Christmas morning, father and son were reunited. "It was thebest Christmas present ever," says Wallace, who has custody ofIshmiel and also has adopted Malik, Fatima's son from a previousrelationship. "I never lost hope, but it was a real tough time."

The youngest of Jackie Wallace's three sons, Wallace grew up inthe Germantown section of North Philadelphia. It was a roughneighborhood, but with Jackie working full time for thePennsylvania Department of Welfare, Rasheed never wanted formuch materially. The absence of a full-time father, though,created a void. Wallace still recalls the times he waited invain for his dad, Sam Tabb, a basketball player of some localdistinction, to show up for a promised visit. "As a singleparent, you try to be everything to your kids," says Jackie."But not being a man, I couldn't relate to my sons 100 percent.I was winging the dad part."

Stung by the experience of growing up with an unreliable dad,Wallace puts as much effort into fatherhood as he does intobasketball. At home he does everything from changing diapers tohelping Malik with his homework. On the road he spends much ofhis free time talking to his wife and kids on his cell phone. Healso counsels O'Neal and Wells, both of whom have kids out ofwedlock, and tries to impress upon them the virtues of a familyunit. "Being a good father is the most natural feeling in theworld--it's lovely," says Wallace. "No matter how I play, mykids are happy with me and put a smile on my face."

This, of course, makes Wallace's meltdowns all the moreincomprehensible. How can a player who's so selfless, knowingthat his teammates rely on him, allow himself to get tossed fromgame after game? How can such an astute student of basketballfail to realize that questionable calls are as much a part ofthe game as jammed fingers? How can a conscientious father ofthree betray such disdain for authority? Making sense ofWallace's fits of pique has become a parlor game for hisfriends, family and teammates. "I think it's an alter-egothing," says Jackie, who is now retired and lives in Durham,N.C., near her other sons, Malcolm, 33, and Muhammed, 30, andcatches Blazers game on satellite. "I can't say it doesn'tbother me, but I think it comes from his competitiveness. I knowthat his real personality is the opposite." Adds Fatima: "I tellhim to calm down and just smile at the refs, but he says, 'Ifeel like my head will pop off if I don't say something.'"

Bill Ellerbee, Wallace's coach at Simon Gratz High, surmises thathis former star is venting his frustration with himself and histeammates at the officials. Ellerbee notes that the bulk ofWallace's flare-ups occur when the Blazers are losing. (Wallaceincurred his lone technical at Gratz when he was so upset withhis own play in a game that he punched a wall.) Wallace's currentcoach, though, doesn't buy that theory. "If Rasheed feels likesaying something, he says it," says Dunleavy. "I don't see himstoring any animosity."

Unlike other tempestuous players--say, Dennis Rodman or GaryPayton--Wallace doesn't talk much trash, and his technicals arerarely occasioned by fighting, taunting or flagrant fouls.Instead, his wrath is usually directed at the officials. Timeand again Dunleavy, a psychology major in college, has urgedWallace to channel his fury into his next dunk or into hisrebounding. So far it's been to no avail. "Rasheed plays withenergy, and that's a positive, but he has to learn to harnessit," says Dunleavy. "I haven't seen a call changed yet in thisleague. Besides, the refs are human beings, and human beings canhold grudges and they can let things get personal." On the otherhand there's little financial incentive for Wallace to chillout. The $500 fine he's assessed for each technical is more thancovered by his six-year, $80 million salary.

Still, like opposing NBA players, Wallace's teammates are findingit increasingly tough to defend him. "His mental approach has tobe better," says Portland center Joe Kleine. "Just like someplayers have a weakness using their left hand and make an effortto improve that, it's obvious that he needs to work on this."Adds Damon Stoudamire, "I love the guy, but he's going to have toget a grip eventually."

Though Wallace vowed he wouldn't lose his equilibrium so easilyin the playoffs, it took him less than a quarter to blow hisstack. "I've never been thrown out of a playoff game, and Inever will be," he says. "I'm just going to go out and bust someass."

He'd better. Otherwise, with their enigmatic star out of thegame, Portland's grand postseason plans--like the residue from acompetitive fire that blazes too fiercely--will be reduced toashes.

COLOR PHOTO: PHOTOGRAPH BY JOHN BIEVER JUMP START Despite a run-in with the refs, Wallace helped lift the Blazers over Radoslav Nesterovic and the Timberwolves in Game 1.COLOR PHOTO: JOHN BIEVER MONSTER MATCH A versatile and dogged defender, Wallace harassed fellow All-Star Garnett into 6-of-20 shooting in the opener.COLOR PHOTO: ROBERT LABERGE/ALLSPORT

T'ed Off

Though his statistics don't suffer much when he gets whistledfor a T--which he did a record 38 times this season--the TrailBlazers' performance does. Here's how Wallace and Portland faredduring 1999-2000 when he kept and lost his cool. --David Sabino

TECHNICAL MINUTES POINTS REBOUNDS BLOCKS WIN-LOSSFOULS PER GAME PER GAME PER GAME PER GAME RECORD, PCT.